Floating Opens Content for You; PipNow Uses the Windows You Already Have Open

Search the App Store for Picture-in-Picture and Floating: Picture in Picture is one of the top results: free to download, in-app purchases, can float videos, images, web pages, and PDFs, recognizes sites like YouTube and Netflix, offers opacity adjustment and shortcuts, and lives in the menu bar so you never open the main window.

The difference from PipNow isn’t the feature count — it’s the way of working: Floating “opens you a little window to view content in,” while PipNow “turns the window you already have open into a mini window.” One is a content viewer; the other is a window transformer.

Where Floating Is Strong

• Broad content coverage: videos, images, web pages, and PDFs can all float, and it recognizes the site protocols of YouTube and Netflix
• Low barrier to entry: free to download, lives in the menu bar, click and use — friendly to casual users
• Simple to operate: no conceptual overhead — pick content, float it, adjust it. Three steps, done

If your need is “mostly watching videos, occasionally reading a PDF, glancing at a web page now and then,” Floating is a light, breezy choice.

The Difference: Do You Have to Reopen It?

Say you’re in the middle of work and want to keep an eye on something.

Floating’s path: open Floating → find/reopen the content you want inside it → float it. Whatever you want to watch has to be “moved into” Floating’s world first.

PipNow’s path: the content is already open in some window — a terminal running a task, WeChat holding a group chat, an AI tool generating — press ⌥⌘P once and that window itself becomes a mini window. No moving, no reopening, no logging in a second time.

In daily use, this difference compounds:

• What you’re watching is a window you’ve logged into, with all its context (chats, collaborative docs, admin dashboards) — reopening it inside Floating means logging in again and losing context
• What you’re watching keeps changing (logs scrolling, progress moving) — a live mirror of an existing window is real-time by nature
• You want to interact directly in the mini window — PipNow’s preview lets you click, type, and scroll without switching back to the original window

There’s also a hidden difference: Floating uses in-app purchases, unlocking features as you go; PipNow is a one-time purchase (from $9.9) — everything up front, no later bills.

One Table

	Floating	PipNow
How it works	Open content inside the app, then float it	Turn an existing window into a mini window with ⌥⌘P
Video sites	✅ Recognizes YouTube / Netflix protocols	✅ Grabs video windows directly
Images / PDFs	✅ Opened inside Floating	✅ As long as they’re open in any window
Already-logged-in web apps	Must log in again inside Floating	✅ Mirrors the original window, context intact
Hover preview that auto-enlarges	—	✅
Interactive preview	—	✅
Capture a screen region into a window	—	✅ ⌥⌘F
Pricing	Free download + in-app purchases	Free version available, one-time purchase from $9.9

How to Choose

Choose Floating if: your scenarios are mostly “viewing content” — videos, PDFs, occasional web pages — with no need for context connecting it to your other windows; and you like starting free and unlocking as needed.

Choose PipNow if: what you’re watching is a working app — chats, terminals, AI tasks, collaborative docs; you don’t want to move content into another app; you need to interact directly in the mini window.

One-sentence test: if closing and reopening that window costs you nothing, use Floating; if losing that window’s state would hurt, use PipNow.

One More Thing

For watching local video specifically, Vihover has subtitles and playlists and is a better fit; for watching video over fullscreen apps, see the Float post.